Adapting SATB pieces for equal voices
  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    My all-male schola would like to learn more polyphony. We're beginners when it comes to this stuff, so we like easier pieces. There is much more selection in the repertoire for SATB than there is for various combinations of tenor and bass. I have heard a number of SATB pieces successfully adapted for men's voices, and we've experimented with this a bit. Sometimes the results are interesting; sometimes it just sounds wrong. Anyone have any hints for doing this? Any experience with particular selections that lend themselves to this kind of adaptation?
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    There is so much ATTB material out there. Why not just use that?
  • priorstf
    Posts: 460
    You might want to take a look at the book of trios posted right here at the Sacred Music website:

    Secunda Anthologia Vocalis

    Great collection of fairly simple duo/trio polyphony that you can adapt for your schola. A bit of work and you'll be adding some wonderful things to your repertoire.
  • Jan
    Posts: 242
    Robert's question is a good one. Same goes for adapting SAB pieces to all male voices.
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    The performance notes in the "Chester" motet books (at least one volume is for three voices) give suggestions for adapting ATB pieces to SAB, TBB, etc. Four part pieces are going to be more difficult without one very low bass and a soprano (as opposed to alto) countertenor (or falsettist). I would not suggest attempting to drop any parts an octave in relation to the other parts, although some 20th century composers have arranged their own music (mostly homophonic) this way. Resources like the St. Gregory hymnal and the Pius X hymnal have lots of music for equal voices. I would also encourage improvised or composed organum to add variety to the chant. There are some great source materials from the various historical style periods describing how to do this (since you can't always find it written out). The wikipedia article on organum (I know!) is actually not a bad place to start.
  • priorstf
    Posts: 460
    Three of us will be singing an AAT trio of Palestrina's Jesu, Rex Admirabilis at Communion for our church's 9/11 Memorial Mass. Very simple to pick up although, as with all "simple" music, very simple to mess up too.
  • G
    Posts: 1,400
    Almost all of the genuinely liturgical music I found in my choir loft when I began, (as opposed to the pretty, ballady, sentimental, vaguely religious stuff obviously bought over the past 30 or 40 years,) is for male-only voices, presumably because of that other motu proprio...
    There is quite a bit of good stuff (though you'll have to sift wheat from cra--, I mean, chaff,) in various old anthologies edited by Rev Carlo Rossini, Oreste Ravanello and others, usually published by J Fischer or McLaughlin Reilley, (sp?) and available through www.abebooks.com
    It's almost all public domain, you no problem copying it (which is good, because there seem to be an awful lot of tiny, tiny books.)
    If you want specific titles, I can make more careful notes when I go to the loft tmw.

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • Richard R.
    Posts: 776
    While I agree with Jeffrey in principle, it is possible to find (or make) arrangements of choral classics, for various voicings, that are respectable (if not necessarily brilliant). An example, Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus arranged for TBB, is available, if you're interested.

    canticnov@aol.com
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